A Shelf for the Front Hall

In 2015 I completely overhauled the front hall. I tiled the floor:

And I installed a screen in the window [which had never had one so we could never open the window]:

For the past few weeks I’ve been working to add a usable windowsill to the window. The existing windowsill was 1″ wide. NOT helpful. Not even a little:

So last month I cut down an old piece of cat platform to fit. I primed and painted it:

Then I decided to test out my latest exciting find: MinWax Polycrylic Protective Finish. Look how SHINY it made the shelf [it’s not quite that shiny now that it’s dried]:

I actually bought the Polycrylic finish to use on the shelves of the girl cave built in and the tall red bookcase to prevent the paint from chipping and to keep things from sticking on warm days. I will be working on that project in the next couple of weeks.

Once the shelf was dry I secured it to the existing window frame with L-brackets. I could have secured it from underneath, but it would have required brackets I’m currently out of, and I figured top brackets would give me a more secure fit since they’re screwed directly to the window frame:

After living with them for a few days I knew I’d need to spray paint them to match the window frame and shelf paint. So today after work [despite having a headache] I sprayed the screws and brackets:

I liked how the screws looked like part of the cherry blossom tree [I bought a pink cherry blossom LED tree [#affiliate] on Amazon last week, it was sort of an impulse buy]. However, after the paint dried, I noticed it looked like crap: